Baby Box bill
HB1437, died when the Missouri Legislature closed up shop on May 15. The bill would have amended the state’s Safe Haven Law to allow parents to drop off infants up to 45 days old in a hole-in-the-wall Safe Haven Baby Box. Read that again. 45 days old Continue Reading →
In 2016 Reclaim the Records, using the Missouri Sunshine Law, requested a simple database extraction of state birth and death listings from January 1, 1910-December 31, 2015. According to Reclaim the Records attorney, Bernie Rhodes, the extraction should “take only a few keystrokes” to complete. DHSS , however, for reasons unknown, responded with a “backdoor denial.” It first demanded $1.49 million to fulfill the request, crazy-claiming compilation would take over 35,000 staff hours at $42.50 per hour (!) When Reclaim the Records balked, the fee was lowered mysteriously to a still high $5000. Then, DHSS rejected the request in full and ran to former Missouri Registrar Garland Land for advice on how to keep the birth and death indices from public perusal. Continue Reading →
Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, have increasingly been denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due to discrepancies on their fictive amended birth certificates produced by the state, and their inability to produce a true original birth certificate to respond to those discrepancies. Now, due to our lack of an OBC, we may not be allowed to run for president or vice president (or other offices) if some states have their way. Currently, 11 state legislatures are looking at bills to force presidential/vp candidates to divvy up their birth certificates to prove citizenship and that they are who they say they are. If these measures pass, the birth certificate requirement will no doubt seep down to all elective offices from city council and county commission to state and federal legislatures and courts. Although voters are already required to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, I don’t think it’s beyond reason that more stringent requirements will be mandated; thus potentially disenfranchising millions of the country’s adopted adults due to lack of their “real” birth certificates. The highly unpopular Real ID,which about two dozen states have refused to implement. and other Draconian “security Continue Reading →
Missouri lawmakers preach that adoptees getting their own birth certificates is a gross invasion of privacy, but say that mandated criminal investigations into the sex lives of the state’s teenage girls isn’t. Tuesday the Missouri House passed HB 1327, which if it becomes law, would require abortion clinics to inform prosecutors when women under the age of 18 inquire, about getting an abortion. They don’t have to get one; just ask about it. Of course this is for their own good. And ours. From KMOV-TV, St. Louis: Supporters say the intent is to help identify men who may have impregnated teens through rape. Other parts of the bill would create a new crime of coercing a woman to obtain an abortion and expand the information that must be provided to a woman 24 hours before an abortion. The Associated Press reports further: Missouri’s proposed mandate to inform prosecutors about minors seeking abortions could be a first nationally if it became law, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive-rights issues. Missouri law already requires the consent of the minor and a parent, guardian or judge before a physician performs an abortion on someone younger than 18. It also requires abortion Continue Reading →
I wrote previously about Missouri’s dumb records “access” bill HB 1237. This entry is about an alternative bill: the dumber records “access” bill. Introduced by State Senator Rita Heard Days, SB 594 is prospective and retro. Sorta. The first part of the bill, “permits” adoptees whose adoptions are completed after August 28, 2010 (that is, those not only not yet born, but not yet conceived) to get their original birth certificates at the age of 18 unless prohibited by a disclosure veto, which Days calls a “contact preference” though “contact” has nothing to do with “disclosure” and a “veto” is not a “preference.” The second part of the bill “permits” adoptees finalized before August 28, 2010 get their obc if Mom is dead or gives permission (no mention of Dad). We’re interested on how the state will determine Mom’s life status. A possible solution would be for the bastard to kill Mom and then claim the state made him do it to get his obc. Here’s the official summary: SB 594 – This act modifies provisions regarding birth certificates and adoption records. The State Registrar shall develop and, upon a birth parent’s request, provide both a contact preference and a Continue Reading →
Happy New Year–Not! Missouri Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) (below right) has pre-filed HB 1237, a “records access” bill in the Missouri House. To no one’s surprise it contains a disclosure veto. And all records will need to be released through the court. This is is progress? Tomorrow is the first day of 2010, not 1957. Here are the changes laid out in the official bill summary: The bill changes the laws regarding the release of identifyinginformation by: (1) Allowing a court to release it to an adopted adult without the consent of the biological parents in certain instances; (2) Requiring a biological parent to file an affidavit that refuses to authorize the release of his or her identifying information with the court in order for the information not to be released to the adopted child. Currently, a biological parent must file an affidavit to allow his or her identifying information to be released; (3) Allowing identifying information to be released if the biological parent is deceased and removes the requirement that the information is necessary for health-related purposes; (4) Allowing release of identifying information concerning an adult sibling without the consent of the adult sibling and without a court finding Continue Reading →
AdoptionLand is abuzz with the news that Rep. Connie “LaJoyce” Johnson, sponsor of Missouri records access bill, HB 1998, has pulled the plug after a woman named Carolyn Pooler got into it with her over something in it, but we don’t know what. Pooler’s objection could be this section of the proposal in which a contact veto is disguised as a “contact preference,” a restriction Bastard Nation and Bastardette vigorously oppose. Continue Reading →
Don’t let anyone tell you that bronchitis is a $64 word for “bad cold.” It’s not. This nasty piece of work brought me so low that I nearly went to the ER (an unheard of event) out of fear of congestive heart failure or pneumonia (at best). Fortunately, my local Urgent Care was open last weekend, and I’m on the road to recovery. I think. As a consequence of this turn of events, I’ve spent nearly the last two weeks in bed sleeping except when mulling over Britney Spears’ mental condition, watching Ocean Force, Forensic Files, and Body of Evidence marathons, and grousing over a recent upsurge in Primal Wound complaints amongst the adopted class. I considered writing here, but frankly, I get my comfort from Dayle Hinman, blood spatter analyses, and tests for exotic poisons; not carping through the neuroeccentricities of AdoptionLand. Then along came HB 1758, Missouri’s latest attempt to restore access rights to the state’s disgruntled bastardy. So far, it is a clean bill. But… In Missouri, adopted persons never grow up and are not only required to get birth parent approval, but apparently need adopter, “adopted sibling,” and adoption agency or juvenile court consent or at Continue Reading →